Pigs will enter the slaughterhouse after a productive cycle exceeding six months, with the proper identification and accompanying documentation and after having kept fast for at least 24 hours. The animals will wait for a maximum of 12 hours at the stabling quarters there.
Slaughter and quartering shall not be simultaneous to that of non-inscribed animals, and the established in the current regulations shall be taken into account.
Said slaughter shall be performed after previous dazing, by means of electroshock or other authorized means, full bleeding being demanded afterwards.
The airing of the slaughtered will last for 24 h at least, within a temperature range of 0 to 5 ºC, and at a relative humidity of between 80 and 90%.
Quartering shall be done according to the tradition and rule of round cutting, keeping the whole lacon in a piece, with hand but without the hooves. Once this has been performed, and prior to beginning elaboration of the lacons, a waiting of at least 24 hours shall pass, in a controlled environment (temperature ranging between 2 and 5 ºC and relative humidity between 80 and 90%).
Only the shoulders with a bloody weight between 3, 5 and 6, 5 kg will be qualified.
At the quartering houses and meat factories, the working and handling of the slaughtered, halves and pieces susceptible of being protected shall not be simultaneous to that of other pieces not sheltered under the Denomination.
Storage and haulage (performed in refrigerated vehicles, as to keep the product at temperatures between 2 and 7 ºC) shall also take place in a fully separate, easily controllable fashion.
Once the fresh pieces had arrived at the meat factories, its elaboration shall be undertaken. Said process consist of several stages (salting, washing, settling and drying or curing), by means of which the pork shoulders are transformed into cured lacons.
The objective of salting is to add salt and nitrifying salts to the bulk. Salting time ranges around a day of salting per kg of the piece’s weight. Afterwards, the piece is rinsed with cold or warm water in order to remove the salt adhered to its surface. During the settling stage, salt spreads evenly through the whole lacon, while a slow and gradual elimination of surfacial water occurs. The minimum permanence in this chamber (between 2-5 ºC and Relative Moisture of 80-90%) is of 7 days.
The drying up shall take place at properly fitted rooms which allow to control ventilation and, therefore, to achieve optimum temperature and relative humidity. This stage shall take 15 days as a minimum.
The whole elaboration process shall last 30 days as a minimum.
Smoking the lacons is not admitted.
Pieces with bruises or shape uncharacteristic of the Galician Lacon shall neither be sheltered.
